AMERICA HAS BECOME A LAWLESS NATION - HILARY CLINTON MAGICALLY CLEARED BY FBI

by MICHAEL SNYDER

Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Clinton smiles at a campaign rally. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

It is hard to be proud to be an American after watching FBI director James Comey magically clear Hillary Clinton of all wrongdoing. Sadly, Comey is likely to go down in history as the man that struck the final death blow to the rule of law in America. During his address to the media, Comey admitted that Clinton sent or received 110 emails in 52 email chains that contained classified material at the time they were sent. But of course there were probably many more. Comey told the press that it was "likely that there are other work-related emails that they did not produce ... that are now gone because they deleted all emails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices." So basically Clinton turned over to the FBI whatever she felt like turning over, and then she destroyed the rest of the evidence. As a former lawyer, this infuriates me, but it doesn't surprise me.

In fact, it doesn't surprise me at all that Hillary Clinton was allowed to skate. I expected this all along. If you search the thousands of articles that I have posted on The Economic Collapse Blog and End Of The American Dream, you will find many articles where I say that Hillary Clinton should be in prison, but not a single one where I ever said that I thought she would be going to prison.

This is how politics in America works today. People like Bill and Hillary Clinton could openly sacrifice children to Satan on the White House lawn and still probably not get into trouble. Despite scandal after scandal going all the way back to Arkansas in the 1980s, nothing ever sticks to them, and nothing probably ever will.

In this case, FBI director James Comey essentially had to rewrite federal law in order to clear Clinton. This is something that Andrew McCarthy explained very well in his article titled "FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook."

There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was "extremely careless" and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.

In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.
The amazing thing is that the FBI handled a highly similar case very, very differently less than a year ago. Just check out what happened to Naval reservist Bryan Nishimura.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Kendall J. Newman immediately sentenced Nishimura to two years of probation, a $7,500 fine, and forfeiture of personal media containing classified materials. Nishimura was further ordered to surrender any currently held security clearance and to never again seek such a clearance.

According to court documents, Nishimura was a Naval reservist deployed in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008. In his role as a Regional Engineer for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Nishimura had access to classified briefings and digital records that could only be retained and viewed on authorized government computers. Nishimura, however, caused the materials to be downloaded and stored on his personal, unclassified electronic devices and storage media. He carried such classified materials on his unauthorized media when he traveled off-base in Afghanistan and, ultimately, carried those materials back to the United States at the end of his deployment. In the United States, Nishimura continued to maintain the information on unclassified systems in unauthorized locations, and copied the materials onto at least one additional unauthorized and unclassified system.

Nishimura's actions came to light in early 2012, when he admitted to Naval personnel that he had handled classified materials inappropriately. Nishimura later admitted that, following his statement to Naval personnel, he destroyed a large quantity of classified materials he had maintained in his home. Despite that, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched Nishimura's home in May 2012, agents recovered numerous classified materials in digital and hard copy forms. The investigation did not reveal evidence that Nishimura intended to distribute classified information to unauthorized personnel.

So what is the difference between Nishimura and Clinton?

Neither of them ever intended to do anything wrong.

So why were they treated so differently?

Needless to say, social media is exploding with outrage over this decision to let Clinton go free. Many Americans are openly asking why they should continue to play by the rules if politicians like Hillary Clinton are not required to do so.

Unfortunately, this is what America has become. Our politicians are a reflection of who we are as a society, and as I have stated before, Hillary Clinton is going to be the overwhelming favorite if there is an election in November. At this moment, she has solid leads in all of the "swing states," and she only really needs to win one of them.

Perhaps you enjoy talk of battleground states. Well, there's a scenario for you, too. First, pick the six "closest" swing states (VA, NH, IA, OH, FL, NC). Got it? Now understand that New Hampshire excepted, Clinton only has to win one of them in order to reach the requisite 270 electoral votes to win. (Optional third step for Republicans only: start shotgunning Pabst Blue Ribbon and don't stop until November.)

Lest any Trump supporters seek solace in poll numbers, recent polls have Trump sliding further behind in all the relevant swing states. According to a Ballotpedia battleground poll released last week, Trump trails by 14% in Florida, 4% in Iowa, 10% in North Carolina, 9% in Ohio, and 7% in Virginia.

Right now, Hillary Clinton is the odds-on favorite to become the next president of the United States.

But ultimately it is the American people that are to blame for blindly supporting corrupt politicians such as Clinton, and if they willingly pick her to be our next president, then we will certainly deserve whatever consequences follow.